InfoWorld: Apple Computer ‘should scare the hell out of any company that has to sell against it’

“A year ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs cut Pixar’s ties with Disney, opting to handle its own marketing and distribution. With that move, the animation shop that made a name for itself with a hopping lamp became its own studio, in control of everything from the rendered frame, to the prints shipped to theatres, to the timing and pricing of its DVDs,” Tom Yager writes for InfoWorld. “Steve Jobs, speaking for Pixar, told Disney, ‘Thanks, Disney, Pixar will take it from here.'”

Yager writes, “Steve Jobs has [also] put Apple in control of its manufacturing, its distribution and even its own economy. He’s turned Apple into the equivalent of a sovereign state. Steve Jobs has sent the message to industry giants like Microsoft and Sony that they’re the next Disneys. They’re holding Apple back. From now on, they may not tell Apple where it may or may not play. Thanks, guys. Apple will take it from here.”

“Apple’s got a unique set of assets that will never run dry: Image, ingenuity, creativity, brand loyalty, nerve, and cash. Tech industry analysts that chuckled over the iPod company’s efforts to rack up real market share in computers now have to deal with a well-heeled Apple minus the humility and projected timidity of old. Apple’s $500 Mac mini is going to eat the lunch of low-end desktops. But not just that: Tricked out with accessories that are on the Macworld Expo show floor now, Mac mini is a DVR (think TiVo) without capacity limits, intrusive advertising, or phone-home reporting of users’ viewing habits. It’s a Playstation with a hard drive, USB, FireWire, Ethernet, expandable memory, a keyboard, and a mouse. Mac mini burns CDs, plays DVDs, and puts out composite, S-Video, VGA, or DVI (LCD flat panel) video. QuickTime 7 does that HD playback and editing thing, and the system’s performance is on par with Apple’s newest PowerBooks. It really is everything other Macs are, just smaller,” Yager writes.

“[Also] keep an eye on the fate of the dozens of companies that sell flash memory MP3 players. Apple’s $99 iPod Shuffle has no display and works only with a proprietary audio format, but it will automatically pick the songs you like best that fit in its memory. Apple targeted the flash music player market not to participate in it, but to wipe it out… Apple can’t be assured of control of every market it targets, but it can be certain of one thing: No one else will control its participation in its chosen markets again. Wherever Apple chooses to go, it will go alone, and that should scare the hell out of any company that has to sell against it.”

Full article, with much more, a great read here.